For Ourselves
by gega.cai
Summary: There's nobody else.  No one else to do what must be done.  So, we fight today for a future –for everyone –for ourselves.    Warnings: Language, some violence, adult situations, and contains a lot of flash backs/forwards.
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** For Ourselves  
**Author:** gega cai**  
Pairings:** Sarah, John, Kyle and OCs mentioned  
**Rating:** PG  
**Words:** 1300+**  
Warnings:** Language  
**Summary:** There's nobody else. No one else to do what must be done. So, we fight today for a future –for everyone –for ourselves.  
**Disclaimer:** Characters and other likely inventive scenarios based on the world created by James Cameron and William Wisher Jr.**  
Author's Note:** This fic references some events from The Terminator and takes place in 1991, seven years after the first movie.

**For Ourselves**  
by gega cai

_No fate but what we make for ourselves, right?_

- Sarah Connor, 1984

* * *

Sarah Connor's eyes snapped open at the sudden lunge of her body waking her from an unintentional lapse into sleep. Her hand instinctively moved to her hip, but her senses were already placing her back where she had left her waking self moments ago. Sarah remembered now; she didn't have a gun to reach for… She looked around and saw she was still in the back of a rusted Toyota truck's camper. The driver had picked her up somewhere near the U.S. border and, with good luck she was not accustomed to, was going where she needed to be now: Mexico.

She eased her back into the bumpy metal of the truck's wall. Looking out the back window of the camper, Sarah saw that it was still dark outside. The relief of recalling her surroundings was fleeting. Something was missing –no, not something, but _someone_. She now remembered who she was desperate to get back to. His face flashed in her mind. It took every bit of self-control to keep panic from rising and taking over her at the thought of him without her and what he must be going through without her. She loathed the feeling and pointedly looked away towards the front of the truck as an outward show of her indifference to it while it tried to trickle out from the center of her chest.

"_He could be anywhere now, Sarah. Alone_," the panic spoke to her.

She clenched her jaw and bore a hole into a metal groove of the truck with her icy gaze.

"_Alone … and afraid._"

"Fuck," she said in a sharp exhale.

On the other side in the truck's cab, she could hear the driver's muffled hum-a-long to an annoying soft rock ballad on the radio. The moment her eyebrows tried to come together in judgment of his musical taste, her face softened at the thought of the driver having the luxury to enjoy anything.

_Enjoy it while you can_, she said to herself bitterly in a moment of self doubt. No. Fuck the machines. They'd find a way to stop it.

It was this type of thinking that had gotten her in the back of the truck.

* * *

"Miss Connor, again, what were you doing in a hotel room rented by these individuals?"

Sarah looked over the photographs of three young men. No emotion or sign of recognition crossed her face. She looked up at the federal officer with heavy eyelids as if the questioning was the most boring thing she had ever been subjected to in all her life.

"I do not know them. The hotel must have had a mix up," she replied flatly.

"Miss Connor," he started again. Inwardly, she flinched at her name being openly used. The officer did not know it (or ever would), but Sarah was a crumbling infrastructure of hope as her world seemingly fell away to expose her to all dangers. It had been a stupid, lazy slip up. Now, her damn name was in the system for any out-of-time motherfucker to see and come after them. Self-disappointment was gelling in her grey matter and threatening to takeover all of her critical thinking. All this was going on behind her blank, lidded eyes and like hell they would learn of anything. The officer went on.

"Aiding and participating in domestic terrorism is a serious offense. These men could have been responsible for serious injury and even deaths. Now, the California state officials are willing to be lenient with you if you provide us information," he said. Below the table top, Sarah's self-control was melting. She had started bouncing the heel of a foot in a nervous, fast rhythm at the word "deaths".

_Deaths. I shouldn't be here –he needs me!_

"Sarah?" the federal agent said, taking note of her blank stare at the wall behind him.

* * *

Sarah Connor paused to take in a deep breath of Mexican air. The sun was close to rising. Its premature steaks of purple chased after fading dark blue sky of the night. The dirt gravel of the road's shoulder crunched under her boots as she approached the Toyota truck's driver window. She had already thumbed a generous number of Mexican bills inside her jacket's front pocket. It was better to pull out just enough and not show how much she really had. It would practically be an invitation for trouble to flash around a ridiculous wad of U.S. and Mexican currency.

"Thank you," her voice broke. She hesitated with her fingers in her front pocket, but then presented the bills to the driver. She looked down at the bills hovering above the driver's side window seal. The driver cautiously took the money and she played up a moment of regret at giving up so much. Maybe he would even twinge later for taking it all after thinking the young woman obviously handed over too much of what money she had –just as Sarah wanted him to assume.

_Deaths_, it said again to her.

The driver tipped his head to her and then faced ahead. Dirt kicked up into the air and Sarah watched the truck pull off and disappear into the horizon. Where she stood was not an uncommon drop-off point. A dirt road a few yards down the main highway led to a small town. Beyond that, was another small town. However, her home was in neither. Just outside between both towns was a not-so-known group of people living in near isolation from the known world. It was there that he was waiting for her to return.

* * *

The FBI agent shook his head in disbelief as Sarah Connor walked out of custody. Behind him, his partner handed over a written up file on the computer factory's bomb scare to the pretty clerk. Tearing away a smug flirtatious glance from her, the partner spoke, "Think we'll be seeing her again? She sure did show up in the thickest mess after disappearing for so long, huh?"

The FBI agent did not respond. Of course they'd see her again. It had been only a few years since the Phone Book Killer's mad spree in California, but those years had changed Sarah Connor. She seemed nothing like the frightened girl staring back in her file folder from state records. Instead, they were now watching the back of a mysterious (and dangerous) woman on a mission walk out on them to plan ahead for her next mission.

* * *

Sarah approached the encampment cautiously. They were not in any obvious danger, but her stupid fuck up in the U.S. could have easily followed her here. They would have to move on soon. It was about time to anyway.

The first faces of recognition nodded to her as she made her way past them to their personal tent. The heavy beating in her chest wasn't fear, but anxiousness to be reunited.

Sarah stopped outside their tent. It appeared to be the same. There was nothing unusual, but then that could be a problem too. All at once panic tried to rise up in her again, but it was too late. She had returned. She had just taken a step forward when the tent entrance flapped open and small legs kicked out in a trot in her direction. John Connor's small face beamed up at his mother and he slammed hard into her legs, gripping the fabric of her cargo pants in appreciation to make physical contact with his missing mother. Sarah plucked him from the ground and lifted him high into the air playfully. She lowered him to her chest and held him in a motherly hug, twisting at her hip to sway him as he rested his head on her shoulder. Contentment.

The two of them remained that way for several seconds. But then Sarah felt eyes on her and she opened hers to see _him_ watching. She smiled and mouthed "Hey".

A few feet from her, standing in the tent's entrance was John Connor's father. Kyle Reese lifted a corner of his mouth in only the way Kyle did and mouthed back, "Hey".


	2. Chapter 2

**Title:** For Ourselves  
**Author:** gega cai  
**Pairings:** Sarah, John, Kyle and OCs mentioned  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Words:** 1900+  
**Warnings:** Language, Intimacy  
**Summary:** There's nobody else. No one to else to do what must be done. So, we fight today for a future for everyone –for ourselves.  
**Disclaimer:** Characters and other likely inventive scenarios based on the world created by James Cameron and William Wisher Jr.

**Author's Note:** This fic references some events from The Terminator and takes place seven years after the first movie in 1991.

**For Ourselves**

**Part 2**

by gega cai

_Are you sure you have the right person? -I'm sure.  
_Sarah Connor & Kyle Reese, 1984

* * *

Sarah let out a guttural sigh of pain at putting weight on her injured leg. The sharp wave of pain yielded temporarily but then returned in a matching beat with her heart. Her fingers clawed onto the factory's cold, unsympathetic floor to pull herself closer to Kyle Reese and further away from the pressed terminator she had barely escaped moments ago. Using her good leg, she dug the toe of her sneaker into the floor in one last lurch toward Kyle, who remained still and face down at the foot of metal steps he had fallen from.

Sarah hitched in a breath of air and held it as she turned Kyle over to face her.

"Kyle?" she asked, though it seemed more like a beg for hope.

Kyle's face was covered in blood, his eyes opened in slits. He did not respond. A seed of an unwanted truth planted in her head then. _He's dead, Sarah_, panic told her.

Sarah gritted her teeth together and a telling snarl showed on her face in defiance. She gripped at the collar of his trench coat to position him completely on his back. Fighting to ignore emotions and scenarios flashing in her mind, she pushed herself up in a sitting position on her good thigh and watched her motionless Kyle while hope and panic bickered back and forth within her. Then, she saw it. His chest lifted slightly and lowered. It lifted again and lowered.

* * *

"I fucked up," Sarah said in a low voice. Her gaze fell from Kyle's face and down at her arms crossed on the table top. A few feet away from them on the floor of their tent, John sat on his knees with his back to them playing with the few toys he had.

"Hey, it's all right," Kyle said calmly. His brow lifted in thought and he sat back in the chair. "Besides, we got all we need out of this place –time to move on."

"Soon," Sarah agreed. "Just in case. My name being in the system…" she started.

"We leave tomorrow. Tonight we plan it out and, more importantly, get some rest," Kyle said. He had apparently not slept much since she had not returned when expected. It pained Sarah all over again.

"Daddy?" John twisted to look back at Kyle. He held up a big tanker truck toy for him to see.

Kyle smiled and replied, "All right, Kiddo," and without hesitation, stood to join his son on the floor in a favorite game of theirs. Kyle was the evil terminator truck driver and John was the hero fighter driving a toy motorbike.

* * *

Sarah parked the jeep in the visitor's parking lot of a Los Angeles hospital. She watched the entrance behind big sunglasses for anything suspicious. This had been a daily ritual of hers for the past three weeks. Inside the hospital, a comatose Kyle Reese fought for his life. He was guarded due to his connection with the Phone Book Killer and the police were itching for him to wake for questioning. Kyle being alive and under watch was a small relief but Sarah knew it all could be in vain. She knew what one machine could do to an entire police department. What if Skynet had sent back others? Anything was possible. They were still in danger. In just the one week after they had defeated the terminator, Sarah had major surgery and continued physical therapy for her leg, buried her mother, Ginger, Ginger's boyfriend, collected her mother's life insurance, sold or gave away her useless possessions, and quite literally turned her back on who Sarah Connor had been –that Sarah was no more.

Though, it had been very difficult to let go of Pugsley, her pet iguana. In a stretch of sense-making, Sarah thought of the iguana as a survivor along with her and Kyle. But, the reality of her situation gave no guarantee her special little man could make it with them. Pugsley was the last of her old life to let go. After finding an owner she felt would take good care of him, she said her goodbyes to him and old Sarah and held back the tears until she had first parked and waited outside the hospital. Now, weeks later, she was ready to reunite with Kyle and go on with what they had to do in little time: raise John Connor.

* * *

With a hushed breath and quiet move in darkness, Kyle weaved a leg between Sarah's and wrapped his arm under her shoulder. His hand snaked up her shoulder blade and into her hair; his thumb hooked under her earlobe and pressed into her cheek to move her head closer to his. His breath was hot on her neck as he grazed his nose and lips there. Sarah swallowed hard. Her body was already reacting to his touch.

"Sarah," he whispered onto the edge of her ear. Her name tickled her skin.

Sarah palmed the round muscle of his deltoid and slid her touch down his back. Her hand staggered its slide over the uneven surface of flat, soft patches of skin and raised, bumpy scars across his back. She never admitted it to him, but she enjoyed the sensation of her hands over his back. Part of it was selfish for their worth: they were like tiny confirmations of his story and told her they were not crazy. The other part was that these scars were the result of Kyle's dedication to his (past) general in the future. Many were probably earned in the name of his unspoken love for the mother of the future.

Although she was fully clothed and he wore cargo pants to be prepared for anything unexpected, even as they slept, they each felt the heat of each other and Kyle exhaled heavily onto her cheek in response to hers. Sarah smiled and began undoing her belt and pant buttons under the weight of Kyle's body on top of her. He lifted his hips to give her more room and waited, imagining what she was doing in the dark. He sensed her pull her pants down to below her knee and released one naked leg free. Kyle nuzzled into the vee of her neck and shoulder as he shifted himself completely between her legs. He rested himself on his elbows above her while the back of his hands smoothed over her cheek and neck.

Sarah undid his pants and slid them down. Her breath caught in her throat as she felt him pressed against her.

His kisses were always ravenous at first, as if he had been waiting desperately to reconnect with her lips since his last parted with hers. Desperate that he may never kiss her again. But, his kiss always softened and became more of a patient devouring of her taste.

He broke their kiss, which left her panting and digging her fingers into his back, begging him. He obliged and they both let out a soft moan. He was completely hers and he wanted her to know he was hers and, especially right now, _feel_ her ownership.

* * *

Kyle was conscious. By now, Sarah was completely familiar with the hospital's layout and the direct route from the visitor's parking lot to Kyle's room. She had kept her distance, even avoiding contact with Kyle for her and John's safety. She had been watching Kyle closely in the hospital for weeks, allowing the nurses to do their job in getting Kyle better. She had managed to read his chart some days ago and saw that he was doing well in physical therapy but, as they put it, "remains difficult to cooperate in efforts to remember his name or share any details that would otherwise let us know his long-term memory is intact. He is also extremely paranoid/guarded … and often asks for the whereabouts of the woman who found him injured, yet we explain to him that she has not come to see him and appears to have left the city according to local authorities."

Today was the day, however, that Kyle would be leaving the hospital. They would return back to Los Angeles some day when they were ready. They were easy targets now.

"Miss? Can I help you?"

Sarah snapped her head away from the corner of a wing that led to Kyle's room and peered back at the middle-aged nurse looking at her from behind the nurse's station. Immediately, Sarah's expression changed to a warm, eager young lady with a hopeful smile, "Hi, yeah … May I see Ronnie?" Sarah asked.

"Hm, Ronnie. Doesn't ring a bell. What's his last name?" the nurse asked over her shoulder as she turned to face the wall of folders with patient's information. Sarah darted away before the nurse could look back puzzled.

_209, 211, 213 … Here! 215_, Sarah said to herself. She stood at the door to room 215. The door was ajar and she could hear the noise of a daytime soap on the T.V. inside. Checking the hall before she entered, Sarah slipped into the room and found Kyle sitting on the side of the hospital bed, his back to the door and looking out the large window.

"Kyle?" she asked softly.

He quickly rose to his feet on instinct and turned to face her. His intense expression at his name called changed at the sight of her. "Sarah…" his voice croaked.

She started to nod assurance but he had already crossed the short distance between them in the room and embraced her. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the feeling of his arms around her and the comfort he brought in just being with her. He pulled back and looked down at her again smiling. _Smiling_. It made her smile like an idiot too. His hair was at least two inches longer and his bangs were long enough to tuck behind his ears, which they were now. He looked younger, though. His face was cleanly shaven and his features seemed softer. Maybe it was the daily hospital food and bathing that softened him up, she thought.

Sarah had changed too. Her hair had also grown longer, but she no longer styled it. Instead, she now had the habit of running her fingers over the top of her head to push it from her face. Her entire wardrobe was dull and effective: neutral colors so she could blend in a crowd. In her hand she clutched a bag of clothes for Kyle, clothes that were equally dull and neutral for their walk out of the hospital.

Kyle noticed the bag after their moment of shared smiles and his hand dropped to take it from her.

"Run into any trouble while I've been in here?" he asked as he pulled out clothes.

"Nothing … so far."

"No one has tried to visit me," Kyle said. "The cops haven't been around in awhile. They said you moved soon after your leg was all right but that you disappeared. I thought I might have failed my mission…" his voice faded at the thought of what that meant.

"Kyle," Sarah whispered to him. She lightly gripped his arm. They were alive and now they were together. Kyle seemed to read her mind and turned to her, his face appeared blank but his eyes revealed all that he was feeling and thinking. Without a word, he lowered his lips to hers. _Alive and together_, his kiss agreed.

They parted their kiss and looked at each other again, studying each others features for as long as they dared. Time was running out and it weighed heavy around them, yet they allowed themselves a brief moment. Each could see that the other had changed –so much had changed since that day they made love and defeated the terminator. Before, they were strangers thrown together in a nightmare. Now, they knew each other better than anyone else ever would care to know or understand. They were equals.

"Let's go," Kyle finally said. Sarah nodded, grabbed the bag and led their way out of the hospital.


End file.
